Christophe Bourdon
'Christophe Bourdon '(24 December 1921 - 16 March 2002) was a former racing driver. He was later known as a pioneer of racing in his family, as many of his descendants including Nicolas Bourdon, Pierre Bourdon, Gorka Aitor Herrera and Jean-Eric Bourdon decided to start a career in motorsports, the former two even making it into Formula 1. Early life Christophe was born in late 1921 in a small farming village in the east of France, never truly determined which one he was from and he himself wanted to hide it, as he didn't want journalists to bother the side of his family which never wanted to be exposed to the world. His parents were Christophe Bourdon (1900-1942), a WW2 fighter who lost his life during the war, and Germaine, born Gerard (1902-1978), a housewife and farm worker. Christophe himself didn't fight in WW2, and after the war ended started his racing career. Pre-F1 racing In 1946, Christophe started racing in minor unorganised tournaments round Europe, mainly travelling illegally, with the aim of doing well and possibly convincing a Grand Prix team to hire him as he had heard of the Grand Prix racing competition. For the next 3 years, he raced with relative success, and in late 1949 he managed to get into talks with Aston Martin racing team. Formula One Career 1950 turned out to be the official beginning of FIA's Formula One racing championship, which meant Christophe's first season with a true racing team in Aston Martin also turned out to be his first Formula One season. He started out with moderate success, retiring too many times to put up any sort of title challenge, but finishing on the podium twice, which lead to him finishing the championship in 5th. In 1951, his retirement streak continued, and by the time he first finished a race he was already eliminated from the race for the title, having only finished the last two races. Both finishes were on the podium, but even with that, he was unhappy with the team and requested to leave at the end of the season. 1952 was Christophe's first season at Bugatti, a French team. He was again disappointed and retired in 5 out of 7 races this season, which led to him even considering quitting Formula One at the end of the season, seeing how one of his only two finishes was a podium finish. He was never somebody to think of himself as a champion or a great races, but he didn't want to be destroyed by teammates season after season simply due to horrific luck. He originally wasn't planning to sign for a team in 1953, but Carlsberg-Renault offered him a slightly desperate deal as they needed a second driver. He raced alongside a former champion, Rupert Scharz, and neither of them had a particularly great season, both struggling to finish in the points. His final season, 1954, was also at Carlsberg. He managed to finish with the same number of points as Scharz this year, only losing as Scharz had a podium finish, but in the final race of the season Christophe injured his hand, leading to losing two fingers and the end of his racing career. Life after Formula One After finishing his racing career, Christophe returned to his wife's birth village, where they lived before his racing career, and started working on their family farm again. For the first decade, he tried to help some relatives and descendants kickstart their racing careers, but stopped once Pierre made it to F1. Afterwards, he spent the rest of his life mainly isolated from the outside world, only occasionally making an appearance at French GP and sometimes showing himself to the world when invited to special events, like the Race of Champions or Midseason Ranting. His near-total isolation and life in a small rural village is what led to his eventual death. In early 2002, he was still working out on his field aged 80, but after suffering an injury, he never went to the doctor, never fully recovered and passed away a couple weeks later, peacefully and surrounded by family.